When eighth graders start turning a profit in an industry, that’s when you know there’s opportunity for real growth.

A Santa Clara solar firm, CalSunTech, has a middle-schooler for a CEO, but seems to be doing well for a local firm, and it’s in the running for a California Clean Tech Open award. The company is developing concentrators to increase the efficiency per unit of silicon in photovoltaics. It’s not a new idea, but the folks who do it best do stand to make a lot of cash selling the technology. CalSunTech already has one patent on file.

Frankly, it seems unlikely that the parents aren’t involved fairly significantly. At the very least, it reminds me of crazed sports dads. Except, in Santa Clara, the dads force their children to startup companies, instead of play football. Which, for some reason, doesn’t surprise me at all.